


A Little Hope

by prosodiical



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Multi, Post-DR1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 22:03:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8030473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prosodiical/pseuds/prosodiical
Summary: The trio clear out a bunker belonging to Despair. It's terrible - it always is - but there's always hope.





	A Little Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Samuraiter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Samuraiter/gifts).



> Warnings for Despair-related gore/violence, unnamed character death, animal mistreatment.
> 
> I really love this ship - I hope you like it!

Naegi had come with them until the bunker door, but as Kyouko pushed it open and the smell rushed out, he'd gone green and covered his mouth with his hands, waving them on. "I just need a moment," he'd said, and she and Togami had stepped around him and descended down the stairs.

It was dark inside. Kyouko felt along the walls, sticky, until she found the light switch and flicked it on, and then the place was lit with buzzing fluorescents, half of them blown, lending the room an eerie yellow glow. Togami wrinkled his nose as he stepped around the blood and worse things on the floor, heading toward the old computer and filing cabinets, medical and chemistry equipment set on a table in the far corner. "Sick," he said with disgust, and Kyouko's mouth twitched, wry.

She went for the shelves along one wall. There were plastic containers, one per hatch, partially opaque. When she slid the lid off she wasn't surprised at what she saw: a tiny body, liquid and rotting. Some of the others had sprung leaks, no doubt the source of the mess on the floor, and she went down the shelves, checking each one. "We're going to have to destroy that equipment," she said neutrally, and Togami looked up from the computer monitor, light flickering blue.

"Of course," he said, and shook his head. "They had all this equipment, all this scientific acumen, and then this?" He scoffed. "What a waste."

"None alive," Kyouko said. "We need to decide what to do with the bodies."

"Bodies?" Naegi asked, stepping into the room. He still looked pale, but there was resolve on his face, that endless fount of optimism Kyouko found so endearingly honest. He stopped when he saw the containers Kyouko was setting aside, all open, but just let all his breath out in a sigh. "We should burn them, at least. Was there any identifying information?"

"They weren't named, if that's what you're asking," Togami said; he'd risen from the computer to flick through the files. "Unless you count Experiment five-dot-one to one-twenty-eight a name."

"No," Naegi said. He stopped by one of the far ones, less decomposed than the rest, an infant bloated green and black. "No, I don't." His face was solemn, and when he met Kyouko's gaze he gave her a wan smile. "I think we can come up with something better."

"One hundred names?" Kyouko asked, smiling slightly, and Naegi lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

"We can think of something," he repeated, and paused in the middle of a step, head tilting. "Wait - did you hear that?"

Kyouko strained her ears, and heard something from beyond the far wall. She headed over, already scanning the wall for any imperfections that might indicate a hidden door, and her gaze caught on a small stain at the bottom, incongruous in its location, dark and perfectly circular. She kneeled, pressing it lightly, and it gave as the door's mechanism whirred, stone sliding back into darkness. She could hear it more clearly now, a light scratching sound, a soft, needy whine.

She stepped inside and Naegi followed her. But while Kyouko stood by the entrance for a moment to let her eyes adjust, Naegi headed immediately toward the sound, dropping to his knees with no care for the caked-in grime on the floor. "Hey, hey," he said, quietly, and as Kyouko neared she saw what it was: a cat, ragged and mangy, eyes glazed white. It was missing patches of fur and one ear, but Naegi reached out, calm and careful, and didn't back away when it hissed. There were bones in the far corner; limbs, skulls, and Kyouko closed her eyes for a moment.

"They were feeding it the dead," she said, coming to Naegi's side and lowering herself to the ground. The cat tilted its head, looking suspicious, and Naegi shook his head and sighed.

"It wasn't its fault," he said. "Whatever was done." He rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a ration bar, unwrapping it slowly, the sound of foil tearing loud in the dark. "We can't just leave it here."

He held the bar out, carefully. The cat sniffed at it and snatched the entire thing out of Naegi's hands, foil and all, and retreated to the corner to chew. "I don't think Togami-san is a cat person," Kyouko said, and Naegi tilted his head at her and smiled.

"Really?" he asked. "I would have said so. You, too," he added. "You both seem... that type."

Kyouko rose to her feet, dusting her pants off with her gloves, and gave him a bland look. "I hope we're not that similar."

Naegi smiled up at her, expression soft. "He's not that bad," he said, and added a little cheekily, "You're not, either."

"Hm," Kyouko said, amused, "if you say so."

She left Naegi to coaxing out the cat in the dark as she returned to the main bunker room, where Togami had already started staking paper in a pile, ready to make a fire. "We'll need to evacuate," he said, looking annoyed. "Some of these chemicals will be dangerous to burn."

Kyouko nodded, picking up their case of gasoline and starting to pour. "Naegi's found a stray."

"They left recently, then," Togami said, pulling the computer case open with a screech of metal that echoed. Kyouko gave a wary look up the stairs they'd come down.

"A week or two, at most," she said. "The last one died about eight days ago."

"Do you think it's them?" Togami was running a heavy magnet over the hard drives before adding them to the pile. "This place seems abandoned."

Kyouko considered. "No," she said. "Cloning... isn't their style. I think these were simply opportune scientists."

A beeping noise started, slow and incessant, and Togami reached to his phone and switched it off. "Here," he said, and Kyouko passed him the container of gasoline as he started pouring it over the the files, the chemicals in glass cabinets. "You get Naegi. I think they've caught up."

Naegi appeared at the doorway, the mangled cat draped over his shoulders. Kyouko raised her eyebrows and he smiled, a little sheepishly. "Monokumas again?" he asked, and Kyouko pursed her mouth in thought.

"There was another exit from that room," she said. "We could lure them in."

"And destroy them all?" Togami said. "Did you pack - "

"Oh," Naegi said, "yeah." He crossed the room to his backpack, rummaging through it, and with a noise of triumph pulled out a bomb. It was the type they extracted from Monokumas, modified to a timer, and he fiddled with the controls for a moment. "Five minutes?"

"That'll do," Togami said. "And what is that thing?" He gestured, and Naegi lifted a hand to the cat on his shoulder, eyes wide and pleading.

"I couldn't leave her," he said. "Togami-san."

Togami looked at Kyouko, who gave him an inperceptible shrug, before sighing, rubbing a hand over his face. "That's probably a load-bearing wall," he said, gesturing. Naegi set the bomb down by it, and they tipped the last of the gasoline over the top. "Let's go."

"But first," Kyouko said, and reached for the cat. Curious, Naegi held it in place as she unfolded its collar, feeling around the inside, and found what she had been looking for: a tracker. She grabbed Naegi's bag, rummaging around for the signal amplifier he kept - usually for emergency distress - and peeled apart the collar, twisting the wires together. "There."

"Hmph," Togami said, "that was relatively clever."

"They'll be lured in, and hopefully be buried here," Kyouko said, and flicked the switch to on. "Now we can go."

Naegi took one last look at the plastic containers, at the corpses slowly decomposing now soaked in gasoline. "Yeah," he said, and scratched the cat under its chin. It purred, rubbing its head against Naegi's hand as Kyouko led the way to the hidden room and its exit, stairs climbing up.

It was bright outside, the air a haze of warmth, and Togami had already pulled out his electronic map as he scanned the horizon. "This way," he said, and they followed, watching for disturbances. It was quiet; the back entrance led out half a mile from the front, and they were even further when the sound of the explosion rent the air, force brushing Kyouko's hair astray. She pushed it back, looking behind her, and saw the plume of fire, the mechanical parts of Monokumas in the air.

Later that evening, Naegi would write a hundred and twenty-eight names on scraps of paper, throwing them into the fire. Later, he'd hide a wavering smile into Kyouko's shoulder as she wrapped her arms around him, as Togami closed his eyes and pressed his face in Naegi's hair; later, she'd join Togami in planning out their next route as Naegi slept quietly on the futon, his stray close at hand. But now -

Kyouko watched the flames climb into the sky, felt Naegi take her hand as he pulled Togami back, fingers intertwined, and smiled.


End file.
